People love the iPad. Everybody wants an iPad. I know a little bit about iPads, so it seems like I get asked some version of the same question over and over again regarding those lovely little iPads. Usually this occurs during casual conversation or small talk type events that happen daily. Occasionally I get a phone call from someone who knows me and is in the store at that very moment. Sometimes I get an email. In any event, I am going to post my most recent response and begin referring people to this post so I don’t have to keep writing the same thing over and over again:)
This time the question came in from my father-in-law, Big Jack, a respected journalism professor at CMU and a diehard traditional literacies type of fellow. It is fairly typical of the question I’m talking about.
We are thinking of acquiring an iPad. Give us your best advice re acquisition costs, program costs, and operation techniques and costs at your convenience.
For the past few days, I’ve been in beautiful Sedona, Arizona to attend and present to a group of early childhood educators from Arizona and New Mexico as part of the Southwest Institute Summer Literacy Institute.
Southwest Institute for Families and Children (SWI) is a non-profit research and development organization focusing on children’s health and education.
Below you will find the slidedeck from my presentation to this dedicated group of early childhood educators, many of whom serve high-poverty children and families from the Navajo nation.
Remember listservs? I guess people still use them, but they really seem so 1990’s to me. Regardless, I’m still on a couple different listservs, and from time to time, there IS good information that comes through the barrage of emails that fill my inbox. Very often, the people who are emailing the listserv are looking for help, assistance and/or answers to their questions. I can appreciate this. Occasionally, I take time to write a decent email and respond back to those questions. I hate doing it though. I wish these listserv people would move their “conversations” to a more open forum, like Twitter, a Facebook group, or possibly even Google+, but many of them are not ready for that, or just not interested. I hope that changes.
Until then, I have very little choice in how I add my voice to the conversation other than writing an email back to the listserv. I took that rather antiquated approach to professional learning and sharing this morning when I wrote a decent email to the people in the NAEYC Technology & Young Children Interest Forum about how I am using iOS devices with young children to take photos and videos. Upon completion, I thought that the information the email contained might be valuable to people outside the listserv, so I’m sharing it here.
iPad2, Xoom, Playbook, iPod Touch, netbook, iPhone, Chromebook, the list never stops. Everyday a new device is hyped, overhyped and pushed into our consciousness by a barrage of media and market glam. In the past 6 months I’ve fielded countless question from school leaders and teachers about the new world order of computing devices.
“Which is better?”
“Which runs faster?”
“Which has the best apps?”
“Which is cheapest?”
“How do we go 1:1?”
Aside from the constant questions, I also hear some horrifying statements.
“We’ve got $30,000 to spend and we’re going to buy every teacher in the district an iPad.”
“The teachers want iPads for teaching so we’re going to get them some.”
It’s got to stop. Enough already because I’m about to go EDTECHHULK on somebody.
Last summer at ISTE 2010, I had a blast at the IEAR Birds of a Feather session. Not only did I get a chance to share some of my favorite apps with the attendees, hang out with my IEAR colleagues @smeech and @jepcke, but I also got an opportunity to create some musical soundscapes with @kevinhoneycutt during an impromptu jam session. Ever since that event, I’ve been wanting to build my own portable music production system that lets me create, record, produce, and perform music with my iOS devices.
This week, I took a major step toward making that happen. I finally broke down and purchased a variety of hardware that I can use both at home and when I’m on the road giving presentations. With the current configuration, I can plug up to 5 iOS devices into a small mixing board and either run the sound out to a small amp for a live performance or into a laptop, desktop or iPad with Garageband or Audacity for recording purposes. I’m looking forward to embarking on my expert knob twiddling adventures and I’ll be sure to keep Raised Digital readers in the loop. For now, here’s a quick run down of the equipment I’ve started to assemble.
Here’s a look a some of the questions I hope to facilitate my EduCon conversation around. If you have additional thoughts, comments or questions, please leave attach them to this post or send them to me on Twitter so that I can include them before Session 2 begins on Saturday. Thanks!
EduBloggerCons are about conversations that teach. Questions are asked, problems posed, experiences shared, and everyone learns.
EduBloggerCon 2010 will be held Saturday, June 26, prior to ISTE 2010. Below is the topic I suggested.
Title: Analytic Tools for Evaluating E-Books & Educational Mobile Apps
Description: The potential for mobile learning devices such as Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad devices are very high. Optimal design features of e-books and educational mobile apps are yet to be specified, although some progress has been made in articulating high level generalizations of app design and construction. Research is mixed, for example, on the benefits of animations, hotspots and highlights as code-related supports for young readers. Helpful at times, these features also distract children from paying attention to print. Supportive sometimes, they also can be annoying, thus reducing engagement, especially for able readers. So–what design information do we have and what do we still need to construct good apps for young children? The research suggests three design domains for consideration: (1) multimedia design which focuses on how words (printed; spoken) and pictures (static; dynamic) are presented; (2) interface design which describes conventions of use, format, and controls; and (3) learning design which involves the basic features of instruction—the learn about loop of purpose, content and feedback. This discussion will take a closer look at the educational possibilities of these devices and applications for students, teachers and administrators and focus on how educators can identify quality apps for instructional purposes.
First eBook on iPad video I’ve run across. I’m wondering if these devices will be big in early elementary education. All of the criticism of the iPad for being media consuming devices rather than media creation devices might be warranted, but this type of eBook application certainly seems to hold some promise in the area of early reading instruction.
I’ve been attending the Midwest Educational Technology Conference in St. Charles, Missouri, for the past two days. One of the highlights of my trip the METC 2010 has been having the opportunity to meet Scott Meech in person for the first time. I first began to communicate virtually with Scott through the I Education App Review (IEAR) community that he founded. Dedicated to exploring the educational value of iPhone and iPod Touch applications in the classroom, IEAR has a growing online community that has a lot of great conversations going on. I provided more details about the benefits of IEAR in a previous post.
Earlier this morning, Scott gave a spotlight presentation at METC where he talked about the IEAR community and highlighted a number of apps that he feels have strong educational potential for classroom use. From the conference planner:
The potential for mobile learning devices such as Apple’s iPhone and iTouch devices are very high. This presentation will take a closer look at the educational possibilities of these devices for students, teachers and administrators. We will focus on the work being done through the online community “I Educational Apps Review.” This community is focused on helping school personnel to effectively and safely use these devices for their personal and educational productivity. Apple’s “Application Store” has thousands of educational applications and yet, are they really educational? We will walk through some fantastic applications and their potential with schools. Additionally, we will discuss issues surounding these devices such as how to effectively implement these devices with students in classrooms to the highlighting of concrete lessons.
I’ve been delivering professional development and providing training on iPods, iTunes and podcasting for about 3 years. When I first started working with educators in this area, I was toting around a fourth generation Classic iPod with me. At that time, I’d say that about 90% of the teachers I worked with had never had an iPod, used iTunes or even knew what a podcast was. While that percentage has probably gone down somewhat over the years, most districts I work with still want the focus of PD to lean more towards creating podcasts and using the iPod as a playback device. I am always happy to work with teachers on this kind of stuff, but it is a little discouraging since I know the device could be used for so much more in classrooms.
While the iPod technology has developed rapidly, i.e. numerous models, video capacity, multi-touch interface, most of the teachers I interact with are still trying to come to grips with how to master using the iPod as a portable media player. My conversations with them are most often centered around “how do I download this,” or “can I put movies on this thing?” In the hustle of a school day, our conversations rarely get to grow beyond the normal troubleshooting variety. I never really get the chance to talk to teachers about the education potential of iPhones/iPod touch. This leaves me constantly searching for conversations with other people who understand what mobile devices would/could mean to teacher practice.
